The work described in this proposal is intended to serve as a starting point aimed at demonstrating that[unreadable] circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) spectroscopy would be an attractive complementary and/or[unreadable] alternative method to current techniques used as specific structural probes of chiral molecules. The initial[unreadable] efforts in this project will be to develop a technique to determine the absolute stereochemistry of simple[unreadable] chiral organic molecules such as amino acids. The emphasis here is the design of experiments aimed at[unreadable] understanding, improving, and maximizing the major non-covalent interactions governing the chiral[unreadable] discrimination between racemic lanthanide(lll) complexes and chiral organic molecules. Several aims will[unreadable] form the bulk of this proposal: (i) the ability to identify "ideal" racemic lanthanide complexes by designing and[unreadable] synthesizing appropriate ligands, (ii) the addition of chirality into our complex systems will improve the[unreadable] selectivity toward simple chiral molecules, (iii) a judicious change in the selected transition used for circular[unreadable] polarization excitation would overcome the limitation of the low intensity of the currently allowed-magnetic[unreadable] dipole chosen for CPL measurement, but will also considerably enhance the structural information gained[unreadable] from the Eu(lll) systems of interest, and (iv) the investigation of the importance of the various non-covalent[unreadable] chiral discriminatory interactions.[unreadable] The ultimate goal of this work is to be able to develop CPL spectroscopy as an important tool for biological[unreadable] applications.